Coordinated Review of the management of the LynnMall supermarket attacker highlights lack of mental health focus

Conducted by the Independent Police Conduct Authority, the Office of the Inspectorate for the Department of Corrections and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, the Coordinated Review report was released on 14 December.

The report looked at the actions of Police, Corrections and the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS) in managing Ahamed Aathill Mohamed Samsudeen prior to the incident that saw the 32-year-old ISIS sympathiser stab six people before being shot dead by police at LynnMall in west Auckland on 03 September last year.

The government was quick to welcome the Coordinated Review, announcing on the same day as the report’s release that it accepted its findings.

“While no recommendations were made in the review report, we’re committed to working through the findings to ensure improvements can continue to be delivered across the system,” stated Lead Coordination Minister for the Government’s Response to the Royal Commission’s Report into the Terrorist Attack on the Christchurch Mosques, Andrew Little.

“This was a complex, unique and long running case that required national security and social sector agencies to work closely together,” he said. “The report recognises the system did its best in what was a very difficult and resource-intensive situation.”

While the report did indeed concluded that “the relevant agencies and individuals were generally doing their best to work together and manage the risk Mr Samsudeen posed,” it nevertheless found that there were four related areas where the response fell short.

Mr Samsudeen was well known to the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service, Police and Corrections. These agencies had all dealt with Mr Samsudeen at various times after his online activity supporting ISIL terror attacks and violent extremism came to the attention of the NZSIS in September 2015 and Police in March 2016.

Arrested for possession of violent objectionable material in May 2017, he was again arrested in August 2018 for possession of an offensive weapon and remanded in custody until July 2021 –almost three years.

Given his stated his intention to commit a domestic terror attack on multiple occasions, the Coordinated Review found that Mr Samsudeen presented as a real threat to New Zealand’s security and was justifiably under surveillance. Nevertheless, the Review report found a number of other deficiencies in the way in which his risk was responded to, which it grouped into four categories:

There were missed opportunities for Mr Samsudeen to be supported and directed away from violent extremism from 2016 when he came to the attention of Police and during his first period in custody (from May 2017 to June 2018). Equally, there were inadequate, fragmented and ad hoc plans for his releases from prison in both 2018 and 2021.

The inter-agency arrangements that exist as part of the National Security System did not always work well. In the absence of an appropriate lead agency, preventive measures for countering violent extremism were ad hoc, Policeinitiated and Police-run. There was no long-term plan involving social agencies and the community, that would have been required to address Mr Samsudeen’s needs and begin the process of disengaging him from violent extremist behaviour.

In some instances, there was reluctance by Police and Corrections to share all relevant information with frontline staff and the community who were dealing with him on release. Programmes to counter violent extremism depend upon community support and must be undertaken as a partnership between government agencies and relevant community groups. There must therefore be a greater willingness to trust those groups with the information they need to participate effectively.

In total, Mr Samsudeen spent more than four years on remand in custody for two separate sets of offences between 2017 and his eventual release on bail in 2021. This was primarily caused by delays resulting from the legislative process of determining whether his online postings were objectionable, and the effects of the Covid-19 lockdown on the operation of the courts. This was an unduly lengthy remand period, which magnified Mr Samsudeen’s sense of grievance against the system, and greatly increased his alienation and radicalisation. We cannot say whether his attack would have occurred anyway, but his period in custody without the appropriate and necessary interventions and support enhanced the risk that he would.

While the Coordinated Review found that Mr Samsudeen’s risk justified his arrest and prosecution, it stated that “this took precedence over, and in the event largely precluded, attempts to guide him down a pro-social path.” This led to missed opportunities to develop a rehabilitative and reintegrative plan for him in 2016 and 2017.

“Overall, not enough effort was made at an early stage to provide Mr Samsudeen with wraparound support to address his complex needs and reduce his susceptibility to violent extremist ideology,” states the Review report. “Although the agencies said disengagement (withdrawal from violent extremism) was the preferred outcome, very little was done to achieve this.”

In coming to this conclusion, the report rebuked assertions that opportunities for engagement with Mr Samsudeen were limited or nonexistent, because of his hostility to the authorities and refusals to talk to them. According to the report, there “were occasions when Mr Samsudeen did engage with people, and times when he sought cultural and religious support, but it was not provided to him.”

Interestingly, the Coordinated Review expressed surprise “that there was no attempt to communicate with his family overseas, and in particular his sister with whom he was known to have been in frequent telephone contact.”

One of the reasons why opportunities to attempt rehabilitation and reintegration were missed, states the report, was that there was no agreed integrated basis for assessing a person’s level of risk. “Each agency had their own system. There was also no inter-agency process for determining the time at which, and the extent to which, some intervention was needed in response to the risk posed by a person’s violent extremist beliefs.”

The Coordinated Review noted suggestions that there should be a “more systematic process” along the lines of Fixated Threat Assessment Centres (FTAC) that assess and develop appropriate interventions for ‘fixated’ people who threaten public figures.

Following the earlier establishment of FTACs in other jurisdictions, including in the UK and Australia, the New Zealand Fixated Threat Assessment Centre was established in 2019 (following a 2017 pilot) as a collaboration between Health and Police and the Parliamentary Service to focus on threats directed at Members of Parliament.

FTACs comprise Police and mental health staff, including psychiatrists, who work together to assess a person’s level of risk, and share information to implement appropriate interventions, which are often focused on mental health.

“We were told that this approach could be expanded to include people at risk of ‘lone-actor grievance-fuelled violence’ such as Mr Samsudeen,” states the Review report, “because both groups:

• have a high rate of grievance;

• tend to suffer significant mental health difficulties;

• usually show warning signs; and

• need a multi-agency response with efficient intelligence-sharing networks.

In his response to the release of the report, Minister Little commented that improvements to be made by the Government will include a focus on what it can do to address signs of radicalisation to violent extremism earlier. This includes work already done to develop the Police-led He Aranga Ake programme, a multiagency disengagement framework for delivering targeted intervention and support to disengage individuals identified as being at risk of radicalisation and deemed to be on a journey towards violent extremism.

But the Review report was critical of He Aranga Ake on several fronts, commenting that the programme is still in its infancy, lacks significant involvement by social sector agencies, and is not intended for high risk persons – or those well down the road to violent extremism – like Mr Samsudeen.

“We are also of the view that it is inappropriate for Police to lead such an intervention programme,” stated the report, noting that police are inevitably perceived to be oriented towards law enforcement (as opposed to prevention) and “therefore likely to be viewed with distrust by those who require intervention.”

Another improvement listed by Minister Little is Aotearoa Katoa: A Strategic Framework for Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism , which is due for release early this year.

According to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet website, the Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (PCVE) Strategic Framework “will set out a wholeof-society approach to prevention of radicalisation to violence and building resilience to violent extremism.”

This includes identifying a “shared path” for government, public sector agencies, research, civil society and communities, providing priority outcome areas for design and delivery of a PCVE Grants Fund to civil society and community organisations to deliver initiatives in preventing radicalisation to violence and building resilience to violent extremism.

This is promising, but the already published New Zealand’s Countering Terrorism and Violent Extremism Strategy sets a precedent that almost neglects the issue of intervention in relation to persons demonstrating advanced tendencies towards violent extremism.

The Strategy is big on the role of government agencies in assessing national security threats, promoting a cohesive society and responding to and recovering from terror incidents. By contrast, however, apart from listing an objective to “support those in need and promote the disengagement and rehabilitation of people engaged with violent extremist ideologies”, it says nothing about roles or responsibilities for intervention.

It’s concerning that a strategy focused on countering violent extremism would fall silent on how issues of intervention and rehabilitation might be approached.

Despite the significant focus on countering violent extremism in New Zealand following the 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks, it’s a relatively new space for our policy makers and practitioners. One of the areas where we lack experience and require a mindset change is in relation to the role mental health plays in violent extremism – and specifically the role of mental health approaches in the management and rehabilitation of persons well progressed along the road to violent extremism.